From small to clever: What does the future hold for the safety and sustainability of advanced materials?

Abstract

The world expects solutions to a multitude of technological challenges, from curing disease to mitigating climate change, from increasingly more “clever” or “advanced” materials. But how do we address the safety of ever more novel substances and what have we learned from the last 15 years of nanosafety research? In this opinion letter, we11The three authors currently serve as the coordination team of the Nanosafety Cluster (www.nanosafetycluster.eu). The views presented in this paper, however, are their own and may not represent those of other members of the Nanosafety Cluster. share our views on how to develop a framework for these new families of materials, that capitalizes on the nanosafety progress achieved to date, and how to ensure the wider nanoscience community could play a part in this new challenge.